The Fortress
by Lanfir Leah
Summary: [Collection of UT inspired ficlets] Sometimes, the difference between death and salvation is very small.
1. A Bit of Luck

**_A bit of luck  
  
_**

The first thing that made her realize that she had indeed been hit was the sudden absence of pain. So far she had been bleeding and burning from a dozen of small lacerations and bruises, and that was the sensation that registered first: she didn't ache anymore.

The second thing was an image and a feeling: she collided rather ungracefully with the concrete floor. It was littered with a myriad of scarlet drops of blood, and her hands smeared through them as she rolled over.

And that was the moment that she noticed that she didn't only feel pain anymore, but that she in fact didn't feel _anything_ anymore below her waist.

Charlotte's manic giggling echoed through the hallway, accompanied by her receding footsteps as she probably figured that she had hit true and her opponent was dying.

Myrian watched her go for a moment, unable to return the favor. Her own gun had jumped from her hand the moment she'd been hit and had spun out of her reach for now, a couple of feet away from her.

_And she couldn't feel her legs anymore._

She gulped heavily, swallowing back a sob of desperation and fear. _My legs._

This meant definite trouble. She'd been in dire situations before since this game had started, but this time it was serious. If she could not get to a regen point soon, it would all be over.

She reached behind her back and felt the warmth of her blood drenching her shirt and armor. Yes, if she did not act fast, she'd be dead. Either Charlotte or any of the other players would finish her off eventually, or she'd simply bleed to death before that time.

_Shit. _

Myrian closed her eyes and visualized the map of the fortress before her mind's eye, trying to recall if there was a regen point close by. And there was, she remembered. She turned her head to the glass doors that led to the balcony. It would be a drop of thirty feet, but on the shore of the river, right below the balcony, there was a regeneration point. She still had two credits left… if she could only get there, she'd still have a fighting chance.

And Myrian was a practical kind of girl, so she bit her lip and fought back the senses of fear and desperation creeping up upon her, and began to crawl. It was this mindset that had gotten her so far in this game, and damn her if it wouldn't save her life once again. It wasn't as if she hadn't gotten out of dire situations before. Even if she couldn't feel her legs anymore, she would make it.

Down the hall, Charlotte's hysterical laughter reverberated. Myrian wished for someone to shut her up for once and for all, and tried to block out the paranoid notion that her assailant was actually coming back for her as she crawled slowly and picked up her gun in one hand. It was harder than she thought it would be, with her legs and feet rendered completely useless. Inch by inch Myrian approached the glass doors, leaving behind a trail of blood and gore. The bullet had left her body through her stomach and it had her bleeding like a butchered pig. It also robbed her rapidly of her strength, and that was infinitely more frightening. When she had finally arrived to the glass doors, she found that she didn't have the strength anymore to open them the regular way. The door handle seemed too far upwards and she couldn't reach it.

Only one option remained: she took a tighter hold of her gun and waited for gunfire to commence somewhere close. If people would hear her fire her gun, they would come here to check it out because they'd assume there'd be a fight going on here. They'd come to kill the winner of that engagement and to loot the weapons of the dead people in the room. It was a technique that was tried and true: Myrian had obtained her current gun that way when her own had been shot out of her hand (and she had regenerated the lost fingers).

There it was: close enough to drown out her own shots, the sound of gunfire filled the air. Myrian aimed low and shot the glass doors to hell. Thankfully, the glass shattered and didn't explode, so she only had to push feebly against it to get it to fall out of its hinges. Shards cut her bare arms (and undoubtedly her lower legs too, but she didn't feel it and didn't dare to check on it), but she grit her teeth and kept crawling.

Time was the essence now. Elsewhere the other gunfight had ceased, rendering someone a winner, and all Myrian could hear now was her own labored breathing. She couldn't hear Charlotte's voice anymore and hoped with all her might that someone had finished the bitch off.

In a way, she thought, it was a good thing that she couldn't feel the damage on her legs. It allowed her to concentrate on survival instead of pain. The only thing that scared her was how her strength seemed to drain away so quickly as she crossed the glass-littered balcony.

_I'm dying._

Thankfully, the railing was only a couple of feet high, and with her last strength she managed to get her self on top of it. Balancing precariously, Myrian peered downwards.

"Fuck," she breathed when she took in the situation below. Thirty feet might seem like a feasible drop under normal circumstances, but without her lower body functioning she was not sure whether she could aim and time her jump well enough to fall directly upon the regeneration point. Who the hell had come up with the bright idea to install one on the shore of the river anyway?

The difference between salvation and drowning was only one foot.

Yet, she was a bloody mess, and staying here would mean a certain death. Pushing herself off this railing and hoping she would touch the regen point would only mean a possible death. All she needed was a little bit of luck.

And then footsteps sealed it. Myrian heard them coming. She leaned back to give her push some momentum and felt/heard a bullet cut the air right next to her left ear.

"Dammit," Charlotte said behind her, sounding almost sane, "will you just die already?"

As the other woman fired again, Myrian let herself fall.

For one instant, the air whistled in her ears and the wind blew in her face – and she wondered whether she had aimed good enough for the regen – she wished for that tiny bit of luck that she needed so badly…

And the next moment, as water splattered around her and she sunk to the bottom of the river like a stone, she knew she had not.

Myrian opened her eyes and looked at the water surface above her. Around her, tendrils of crimson were tainting the clear waters, and she would have cursed if she could have.

It was only ten feet, but Myrian knew that it might have been ten miles for all she cared. She would never reach the water surface again. Not like this.

Game over.

Pity.

_  
Lanfir Leah  
July 2004_


	2. ImPerfections

**(Im)Perfection**

To make that one shot, you have to be perfect. The circumstances have to be perfect. You need to have exhaled, and in between breaths, the shot occurs. You need to be perfectly still in your mind and in your body, balancing on a razor's edge between perfection and a horrible miss. And that miss has consequences.

I am a sniper, and the best in this whole godforsaken building. While everyone around me is dying and using up their credits for regeneration, I still have all five of my credits left. My breath is shallow, my pulse is low.

I am lying in an air duct. For some reason nobody ever looks up when they enter a room. Did you ever notice that? Very stupid, of course. They check left, they check right, they creep into the room with their gun ready… and I simply shoot them in the head. Of course, this gives some problems with shoveling away the bodies, because when the bodies are piling up before the entrance, people are somehow reluctant to enter. I solved this quickly: after my first two kills, I just waited until they entered and walked out of direct sight of the hallway. And then I took my shot. Works just as easily.

And lucky me, one of the first to die sported a grenade, so at some point I just tossed the grenade at the bodies. When there's a splattered mess that used to be people, nobody knows they've been snipered. And nobody will look for the sniper. Stupid, stupid. They know that I am here. They've seen me with the sniper rifle on my back, entering the fortress at my own interval. Everybody should know that I am here, waiting for them to walk into my trap.

I'm at seven kills right now, no credits spent.

It is a bit of a risk though, to hide out so far from the nearest regen point. If someone would outsmart me and shoot me to hell, I wouldn't probably reach the regen point in time. Unless I could wriggle myself deeper into the air duct, which is something I'll only accomplish without my rifle and ten pounds less around my stomach and hips.

It's a two-sided coin, however. Because you see, my victims can't reach their regeneration point either, and here I am holed up and out of clear sight, while they are leaving themselves wide open to my crosshairs. So far, so good. So perfect.

I am perfectly still and quiet, while around me the battle rages. Sounds of gunfire and screaming reach me through the air duct and are carried through the long hallways with their many twists and turns. Glass shatters, and laughter occurs. I do not dwell on what might have happened there. I just want them all to spend their credits and leave me as the only survivor. There's too much at stake. I have to be perfect.

At least until the final showdown, I have to be. There is one other sniper in the building.

I know that, because I've seen him. He was the seventeenth to enter the building, while I was the fifth. A much better position if you want to hole yourself up in the trenches, waiting for people to walk by. Kyle is going to have a bloody hard time finding a place to hide himself with his rifle, since most of the people will be inside the building already.

Perhaps somebody already shot his sorry ass to hell. Now there's a happy thought… because even though I'm trying my hardest to be perfect, he IS perfect. Has always been perfect. He was called The Machine for a reason, with his eagle eye and his infallible shot. While I scored 99 on my accuracy, he scored 100. I've never heard of him missing his target in all those months that they've been training us.

There's a million dollar for every person you kill. There's a subtraction of a million dollar for every credit you spent on regeneration. Twenty million dollar extra if you win the game. Everybody knows that. I'm at seven million dollar at the moment, and probably one of the favorites. Soon, the first twelve hours will have passed, and they'll announce the losers. The ones who died. Seven of those are littering the floor below my air duct, and it feels good.

The camera in my collar is watching me quietly and steadily. Through that camera, I'm beamed into millions of living rooms. People will be placing bets on my survival (or not), while I am lying in the airduct, the flows of air chilling my ankles and my feet. I'm used to being watched by camera's by now. In the Training Camp, they even had camera's installed in my fucking shower. Camera's watched as I ate, took dumps, practiced my imperfect shots, and while I rolled in the hay with Kyle, because we understood each other.

It is lonely to be watched all day.

But that's okay, because snipers are used to be lonely.

And I'm perfect. I'm a sniper, I don't need anybody else. Kyle was just… a distraction. I am certain that I meant the same to him. Just a pleasant distraction from days of training, perfecting skills, forming alliances and rejecting them again just as quickly with the other nineteen participants in The Game. And all the time there were cameras were watching us. Living rooms were assessing us. Perhaps rejecting us. Because not everyone is perfect.

Suddenly, the loudspeaker blares next to me. I was expecting it, but it shocks me out of my perfect concentration nonetheless. The man speaking is Stender, the presenter of The Game. "Hello Kyle and Dana, you are the last ones left." Stender tells us, his loudspeaker-enhanced pleasant voice trembling with a chuckle. "I suggest you seek each other out and resolve your issues before midnight. I think I speak for all of our viewers if I wish you a good battle. Kyle, you especially. I have some bets going on with the producer that you're going to be our victor."

I'm not going to leave this spot. Stender can shove it where the sun don't shine. I have to be perfect, and this is the perfect spot. Kyle can come to me, I'm not even thinking about leaving this place. HELL no.

"Oh, before I forget," Stender added cheerily, "this is the first time we end up with two snipers at the end. You are highly encouraged to leave your current location in the next twenty minutes, otherwise we'll reveal your whereabouts to each other."

Shit.

Stender laughs. "Oh, I'm receiving some distress signals from your lifesigns, Dana. Are you afraid that Kyle's going to kick your ass?"

I glance at my camera sideways and take the time to show Stender the finger. "I'll be perfect," I promise the presenter and the viewers at home.

Sliding out of my secure hiding place, I cast a last glance at the spot that served me so well in the past twelve hours. My bladder is full to bursting, but I had not dared to pee in the air duct, afraid it would be dripping out somewhere that would give me away. So I quickly unzip my pants and do my thing, uncaring about the viewers at home. Kyle should still be a while away and I need to do this. In my perfect concentration I hardly felt it, but my bladder was as hard as a tennis ball, and about to burst anyway.

And now to relocate somewhere. Preferrably as far away as possible. If Kyle comes here and smells the urine, he'll know that I was here. Still, I have to be cautious. He's relocating as well, and he could be anywhere. Maybe even as close as in the next room.

I put my sniper rifle on my back (at close range it's almost useless) and grab my handgun instead. We've all been issued one standard gun, given to us by the program makers, and we were all allowed to bring our own weapon of choice with us. For me, it had been my sniper rifle, of course. Sometimes I feel as if I was born with a rifle in my hand. The handgun feels unfamiliar in my hand, but I hardly care. As long as my aim is perfect, it doesn't matter what I am shooting with. The damn thing should be balanced enough, at least. I tried it yesterday evening and it seemed stable and not as wobbly as I had feared at first.

It should be able to do the trick, if I can surprise Kyle.

For one moment, I consider staying here behind the door, but I'm not sure whether this is against the rules that Stender imposed on us. Technically, I've left the air duct, but I'm still in the same room. But then again, this room smells of piss, so waiting for Kyle to show up here is going to be not very pleasant.

So I leave the room. I work methodically through the hallway, putting to use all those lessons and drills we followed in during the three months of training.

Of course I have my strategy all laid out for me. Three months is a long time to consider all possible strategies, so I've thought this over many times and hammered out a plan that mostly considered if 'if…then' situations. My second option, if the air duct would become unworkable, was the roof.

And since it would make sense for a sniper to look up high places, I kind of expect Kyle to do the same. It would make sense, wouldn't it?

The fortress is dead quiet and smells of dried blood and feces, of all things. I try to ignore the stench coming from some of the rooms and slip into the stair house. Dead quiet. Kyle can't be here. I would have heard him. Unfortunately, it's nigh impossible to walk quietly so I hope he'll use another stair house to get upstairs. If he enters after I've started to ascend the stairs, I'm dead meat.

The metal in my shoes will resonate on the metal stairs. Of course. That's the way they designed these damn things. Thankfully, I'm already on the seventh floor, and I need only three more stories to get to the roof. Still, I have to be cautious. I creep upwards, making my way slowly to the roof.

The roof, I know, is flat, black and only has a small square sticking up out of it. And that's the entrance from the stair house. The roof doesn't have a place to hide, unless you climb on top of the stair house and wait for your target to come out of the stair house and shoot him from above. However, even that will make for a problem, because there are multiple doors to the roof. Three of them, to be precise. And what if Kyle's already sitting on top of one of them? Or hiding behind the low walls, waiting to shoot me to hell and collect all of the prize money?

It's very much possible that it'll come to that, and the idea of that crumbles my perfect concentration. The possibilities are racing through my mind and even though I try to keep my calm, to center myself and to cling onto my concentration, I can't. Aside from that, the echoing metallic sound of my footsteps is driving me up the walls.

I need to be calm.

I need to be collected.

I need to be perfect, dammit!

There is the door.

It's made of glass and is opened by pulling a bar downwards. Here's my moment of truth.

If Kyle is anywhere on the roof already, he'll shoot me because I'll be wide open upon entering. But if I dally too long, if I stall, then he'll be able to enter the roof sooner, and then my chances on a clean victory will be ruined.

Only one thing to do. I fling the door open wildly.

The next moment, the glass door shatters and shards are exploding in the air before me.

Oh, Kyle is definitely residing on the roof.

I try to control my racing heart, but it's pounding in my throat anyway. Funny how you think you are prepared and in perfect concentration, and then you aren't. Perhaps I'm not as perfect as I always like to think I am.

Stender is rooting for Kyle. Who else is? Millions of livingrooms?

Statistics show that females actually win the Game only a fraction more often than males do. It all depends on perfection. And that's something I have not attained yet, while it seems he has.

"Damn you, Kyle," I whisper hoarsely.

I have to enter the roof to end this. We still have until midnight, but I'm not going to feel any better by then. Now that I've let the nerves enter my system, I can't calm myself anymore. Imperfections have sneaked into my system, and I can't be perfect anymore. I need to end it. I need to end it badly, and quickly.

All I can do is cover my ass while I walk out.

And so I do. In a whirlwind of bullets, I speed out, quickly rounding the corner of the stair house and pressing myself tightly against the wall.

"Hi there, gorgeous," Kyle tells me amiably, his face blurry as I focus upon the crosshairs.

A moment of heat ends it.


	3. Perfect Enemy

**Perfect Enemy**

"Wake up!" she shouted, kicking at the limp body beneath her feet. No response. The yellow energy of the regeneration point sparkled around them for a moment in a cascade of shimmering golden drops, but Zach was lying still… too still. The dried blood was caked all through his hair and over his face, staining his armour and his clothes.

Another kick. Still no response. May balled her fists in frustration and continued her tirade: "Wake up goddammit! I didn't drag you all the way out here to let you die on me Zach, wake up!" She didn't mind the fact that she was wide open for any attack. Her gun was lying on the ground where she had dropped it and it was out of immediate reach, but it was about the farthest thing from her mind.

On the dusty ground of the cellar, cloaked in shadows and the faint glow of the regeneration point, Zachary was lying for dead. And it shouldn't be this way. "Face me!" she demanded, but he didn't respond.

She had found him on the first floor, lying in a pool of his own blood.

Five minutes prior Stender had called out the names of the survivors so far, and there had been three names. Herself, Peter, and Zach; but Zach wouldn't make it long anymore, Stender had added cheerfully. "Pity your big rival is out of the running, isn't it May?"

The announcement had set her blood on fire: it wasn't supposed to be this way.

Zach was _hers_.

And yet Peter, that despicable son of a bitch, had taken him out. No, it could not be. She had ran down three stairs and had found him eventually, lying too still, too quiet.

"Dead as dead can be," Stender had commented, amusement lacing his voice. "Now you won't get your final showdown with Zach. How about you duke it out with Peter, instead?"

"Fuck Peter," May growled at the cameras, She'd picked up Zach and dragged him to the regeneration point. Zach was still breathing, albeit shallow and irregular. Head injuries bled like crazy, so she tried not to worry as she dragged him down the stairs. She tried pretty hard not to think about anything – she was dragging her _rival_ into safety. Millions of livingrooms were watching her on live television as she was trying to save her rival's life… at her own expense. She was trying to save Zach and leaving herself wide open for any of Peter's attacks in the meantime. Something was not right in that logic, but she rejected the thought. It seemed like the only logical thing to do. Zach couldn't die yet. So she was saving him.

_Only to kill him,_ she told herself. _He's mine_.

"You are MINE, Zach," she said to the still body on the ground, finding to her surprise the anger bubble in her blood and her fingernails sinking into her palms as she balled her fists. "You're my perfect enemy, I… I've lived for this battle for years. You are NOT dying on me! You fucking disappoint me!" May stamped her feet in utter frustration and bent over Zach's body to check his credits. One more left. She'd already spent two on him, but she had to try. Maybe he was so injured that two credits wasn't enough to heal him. And if he'd be dead, which he wasn't, then that last credit was worth shit anyway.

The device on Zach's hip blipped as the credit was used and around them, the regeneration point flashed wildly and yellow. May blinked for a moment as she felt the regenerative energy around her surge through the body under her hands, but a slight spasm was all that happened.

"Regen points only work if the subject is still alive, May," Stender commented mildly through the loudspeakers that were scattered throughout the whole fortress. His voice reverberated on the walls.

"Thanks a lot Stender," May snarled.

This way, Peter would know she was at a regen point. He'd also know where he'd last left Zach, and that May was obviously trying to heal whatever was left to heal about her arch rival. Oh, he'd be laughing… and he'd be on his way to finish her off. Goddammit. She'd have to leave Zach behind and make a run for it to save her own life.

But, looking down on Zach's pale face, she found that she couldn't. "Wake up and face me," she said softly. Her voice was trembling, and so were her hands as she covered her face as she thought of her expectations of this battle, of the two of them and their alliance – how they would team up to take care of all the other contestants and in the end, they would turn on each other to see who was best in the end. He was her perfect enemy, all the statistics said so. Why had this happened then? How could this be? When had they gotten separated? And why had he let Peter surprise him? "Why can't you turn and face me?"

"Because he's dead," Peter's voice cut clearly through the cellar. He was standing at the top of the stairs, outline by the light that came from behind. He was holding his shotgun in his hands. She couldn't see his grin, but she could hear it in his voice: full of confidence, arrogance and amusement. "As you will be."

Her own gun was out of reach.

"Fuck you," was all May could offer before bullets riddled her body.

Her last credit wasn't in time to save her life.


End file.
